As a superior race, do the Martians have the right to overthrow us? They are a species that have lasted beyond their own planets lifetime. Look at us, we are close to self destruct, while the planet is still quite young. Is it not better that the Martians claim Earth as their own?
having learned their lessons of over using Martian resources, will they not be better guardians of Earth than we?
Was it not a tragedy when they fall fowl of our bacterias?
If there was only room for one of our species to live on, then wouldn't a wise God choose them over us?

How do you know the Martians "learned their lesson"? Who's to say they wouldn't overuse Earth the same way they did their own planet. After all, after Earth's gone, there's Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, ....

Exactly, Alland, the Martians arren't supposed to be somehow 'better' than us just because they're more advanced. They're the same old imperialists we see arround here all the time, they just have flashier ways to kill things.

As a superior race, do the Martians have the right to overthrow us? They are a species that have lasted beyond their own planets lifetime. Look at us, we are close to self destruct, while the planet is still quite young. Is it not better that the Martians claim Earth as their own?having learned their lessons of over using Martian resources, will they not be better guardians of Earth than we? Was it not a tragedy when they fall fowl of our bacterias? If there was only room for one of our species to live on, then wouldn't a wise God choose them over us?

Interesting thoughts there.

Its like saying who has the right to Earth if there were a choice between Chimpanzees and Humans. You'd have to say humans really. So therefor you'd have to say the martians, over us.
Would God want the more evolved species to dominate?

Its like saying who has the right to Earth if there were a choice between Chimpanzees and Humans. You'd have to say humans really. So therefor you'd have to say the martians, over us.Would God want the more evolved species to dominate?

'God', (or rather 'Nature' for those of us who don't practice religion) chooses in favour of the species best suited for an environment. There is no such thing as a being "More evolved" than annother because their is no quantitive scale of evolution. A species could be better suited to its surroundings, or more easily able to adapt, but it is never "more" eveolved than any other.

In the case of the Martians, the fact that they could not survive our bateria, or devise a means of defeating them before being whiped out, proves that they were less suited to live on Earth than we are. If they ever get past that obstacle, and continue to prove more adaptive to our environment, then they'll be worthy of our little Home. Until then, it's ours.

Totally disagree with you. Human beings are the pinacle of evolution on this planet, we have evolved more than any other life form. Everything on Earth has evolved from the same early single cell creatures, you can trace yourself right back to the first living things, you are related. Ever since the first life form lived, then a part of it has been seeking to be human. We are the newist life forms on the planet, and have therefor gone through the longest evolutionary process.

But what do you mean by 'most evolved'? If you mean 'best suited to lasting a bloody long time' then, oh I don't know, how about horseshoe crabs? If, on the other hand, you mean 'best able to outbreed anything else on the planet and dominate every ecological niche' then yes, I suppose man wins. But suppose we make such an arse of the planet we become extinct? Who'd have the last laugh then?

Dinosaurs, as a type, were around for, ooh, 165 million years or so. We've been around for three. I'd say come back in 162 million years and ask me if we're so 'well' evolved...

Meanwhile, I say 'Vive la crabe en fer à cheval!' Bless 'em...

Last edited by McTodd on Fri Sep 09, 2005 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Physically we are more evolved than the dinosaurs or anything else. We are the most complex animal on earth. we have more nerves than any other animal. We can invent, create music, and art, complex languages, abstraction, drugs, clones, new life forms, split the atom, land on the moon. We have the potential to colonize other worlds. Lasting as long means nothing. If we go tomorrow, then our three million years shits on the 250 million years the sharks have had.

Totally disagree with you. Human beings are the pinacle of evolution on this planet, we have evolved more than any other life form. Everything on Earth has evolved from the same early single cell creatures, you can trace yourself right back to the first living things, you are related. Ever since the first life form lived, then a part of it has been seeking to be human. We are the newist life forms on the planet, and have therefor gone through the longest evolutionary process.

And you don't have to practice religion to believe in a God.

Technological achievments of man are a result of his adaptability, our intelligence appears unquestionable on Earth, and yet we're still just as physicaly vulnerable as any other species. Can a human survive in Antarctica without the help of our inventions? How the bottom of the ocean? Or Inside a volcano? All of these environments are unsuited to us, but other forms of life have managed to thrive there. If we entered those environments unaided, we'd die, but the same happens to any species placed in an area that it was never able to inhabit. The same way that the Martians, who were so dominant over their own homeworld that they destroyed all bacterial life, were helpless in Earth's environment to which we were so well adapted.

So, Are we "more evolved" because we survived on Earth, or the Martians "More Evolved" because they achieved grander feats of science? -No- We were both evolved on different worlds, by different selective forces, and so were very different species.

And as to your "newest species" argument, Evolution is a constant process, No species ever 'stops' evolving or suddenly 'jumps' up to a new creature. Because we all have a common anscestor, all life on Earth has been under the same selective pressures for the same ammount of time. Those who couldn't take them, died off, and those who could adapt and overcome are still here today with us. We're all equally eveolved, but along different paths.

Quote:

If we go tomorrow, then our three million years shits on the 250 million years the sharks have had.

Not if our Three million years leaves nothing more than a bunch strange focilized primates. Look arround you, and you'll see signs of deacay in all things man has built. Civilizations which ended mere tousands of years ago have left almost no lasting evidence. By the time those 250Million years have passed, what of our work will be left behind on this world for others to find?

"Best evolved" is relative at any moment in time. Humans are on top now unless a technologically more advanced race like the Martians invades us. Wells' Martians are on top unless the world in question---like Earth---has bacteria. If it weren't for the asteroid strike or whatever it was, the dinosaurs would still be on top, and if something happened to make life on land impossible, the dominant creatures would be sharks or other fish. And as for "outbreeding every other life form and taking over every niche", that's the job of the insects and arthropods in general. "Fitness" means being able to survive in a given environment at a given time, and given climatic change and the like, the rules of the game can change at any time. Try to get a copy of Roger Raupp's book "Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck". That covers the matter of "fitness" quite well.

We'll have to just disagree then. If you think that a worm is equally evolved as you are then that's you.
We haven't started genetically engineering ourselves yet, which thanks to our highly evolved brains we can do. Ethics hold us back. But we could gentetically alter and modify the human race to be able to live on the bottom of the ocean or in antartica if we wanted to. Once we have totally master biology, then nothing will stand in the way of humanity, perhaps not even the death of this Universe.
Tell me of an animal species that is younger than mankind?

How do you know the Martians "learned their lesson"? Who's to say they wouldn't overuse Earth the same way they did their own planet. After all, after Earth's gone, there's Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, ....

The argument that Man is the apex and zenith of evolution because of mankind's technological achievements, is flawed, because this criteria of success is based purely on human terms (ie: it's 'success' as only we - homo sapiens - perceive and define it).

For example, many species of insects have existed since long before mankind evolved, and they currently out-number the human race many thousands to one. True, they may not have invented the internal combustion engine, the transister or the microchip, but it could be argued their colonies are far more complex and orderly than any human society.

Who's to say that we are their superior?

Also, is Mankind's ability to keep evolving actually evidence of superiority, or does it merely indicate that human beings are a flawed design that hasn't been perfected yet?

Compare with creatures such as great white sharks or crocodiles. In their environment, they are the apex predators, and yet they stopped evolving millions of years ago. They had become such finely tuned creations, they couldn't get any better.

Who says crocodiles, sharks, etc. have stopped evolving? Evolution moves so slowly that it's invisible to the naked eye as it takes place; we only knows it's taken place in the past via hindsight due to the fossil record.

Another thing to remember is that once a species is dominant in one environment, it often tries moving into another. Take the crocodiles. There have been a number of armored species from the Cenozoic known as "panzer crocodiles" which lived exclusively on land, with extra-thick scales for protection from predatory mammals and birds, and whose claws evolved into hooves for better running ability. South America also saw land-dwelling crocs---the sebucids---which kept their claws and grew long and slender, imitating in form the monitor lizards. In Mesozoic Madagascar, there was even a small tree-dwelling crocodile.

Of course, the REAL "expansion success story" of the crocs took place back in the Triassic. Once the first crocodiles dominated the waters, some of their number moved onto land, becoming the thecodonts. Because their crocodilian ancestors relied more on their hind legs for propulsion in the water than their forelimbs, some of the thecodonts evolved to an erect posture, turning their forelimbs and forepaws into arms and grasping hands. After that, they evolved into life's most spectacular success story, the dinosaurs, and after THAT, some of those creatures evolved into the first birds. And the birds are still doing fine as a group today. And if any of the birds---or today's crop of "traditional" crocodiles---evolve into anything else, the great crocodilian parade of new life goes on.

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